


the prickings of my conscience in my chest

by queenbaskerville



Series: got the brightest skylight [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Gen, Guilt, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Revelations, Post-War Table Operation: Protect Clan Lavellan (Dragon Age), Revelations, Revelations Spoilers, Slavery, Survivor Guilt, War Table Operation: Protect Clan Lavellan (Dragon Age), War Table Operation: Protect Clan Lavellan (Dragon Age) - Failure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22192795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbaskerville/pseuds/queenbaskerville
Summary: "Dorian's a Tevinter magister," the Inquisitor says, "or the son of one.""He makes you uncomfortable," Blackwall says. The realization feels like something he should've already known. "Is that why you never take him to any elven ruins?""What do you mean?"—Blackwall's good intentions lead to a conversation he wasn't sure he was prepared to have.dragon age alphabet: d is for dislike
Relationships: Blackwall & Female Inquisitor, Blackwall & Female Lavellan, Blackwall & Inquisitor, Blackwall & Lavellan, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Series: got the brightest skylight [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599907
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	the prickings of my conscience in my chest

**Author's Note:**

> some dialogue ideas nagged at me in my head until I typed them in my notes app. then they turned into this.
> 
> i don't hate any of the companions; i just find character dynamics so interesting
> 
> you don’t rlly need to know this, but my inquisitor I write here is a female rogue (LI is josephine). before the conclave, she was married to a mage in her clan, but after the "protect clan lavellan mission" goes south, she believes her wife is dead.
> 
> title from ["prowl great cain" by the mountain goats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j47lkX6WtHA&feature=emb_logo)

The party makes camp wearily, blood on everyone's clothes and armor—it'd been humans and worldly beasts they'd been killing today, not spirits and demons. The Inquisition has not yet established camps in this region, so the party's saddlebags had been equipped with tenting equipment. Dorian had suggested it in case of rain. The Inquisitor doesn't usually capitulate to such things—Blackwall suspects that she thinks it's a waste of their horses' energy (in her case, her elk's energy) to carry such heavy bags—but she'd allowed it this time. Although Blackwall doesn't mind just being out and about with a bedroll, he's privately grateful to protect his sword and armor from the possibility of rain in the night.

Blackwall helps Bull pitch one tent while Dorian and the Inquisitor pitch the other. They make quick work of it, even Dorian well-versed in tent-pitching by now. Iron Bull does Blackwall the kindness of joking with him the whole time. He claps a grey hand on Blackwall's shoulder while laughing uproariously, and the weight of it makes Blackwall stumble. Blackwall grins at him, feeling more at ease in this moment than he has since—well. Since his judgement day.

Bull's "I don't hate you," had been clear enough, and Blackwall had flinched at Sera's "Who cares about a handful of nobles?" but had appreciated her warmth and pranks in the days after. Dorian hadn't offered any opinions of his own, but he'd been cordial enough with Blackwall so far on their current mission, so he'd take it. The rest of them... It would come with time. Or maybe it wouldn't. Blackwall was willing to wait to find out.

A quick glance at the Inquisitor and Dorian shows some of the same laughter, but far more quiet. Little quips and easy talk. The Inquisitor has gathered wood for a fire sometime when Blackwall wasn't paying attention, and Dorian casts a quick spell so the wood will catch.

Iron Bull walks over and sits down next to Dorian, jostling him with his shoulder. Blackwall has seen Iron Bull's combination of brute strength and deliberate grace in battle, so he knows that Bull could've avoided physical contact while sitting down if he wanted to. He's not just some hulking thing unaware of his own strength or movement. He's bumping into Dorian because he wants to be friendly. Or—maybe he's being a little flirtatious, if Blackwall's reading the metaphorical room correctly. It makes Blackwall smile again, just a little, to see light like that even in all this dark.

The Inquisitor has stepped away, giving them room to be in each other's company. She almost melts away into the shadows. It's odd, to have someone like her lead the Inquisition. When she's in command, she easily controls a room, even seems to radiate power at times. She's all you can look at. But sometimes, in battle, and at times like these, it's far too easy to forget she's there. She practically disappears. Blackwall wonders if it's an affect of the mark, that maybe it cloaks her, makes a human's eyes pass over her without seeing anything. Could be a rogue thing, Blackwall supposes. Part of her stealth. He's not sure. The only other roguish types he has to compare her to are Cole, who's a spirit, and Sera and Varric, neither of whom could ever be called unnoticeable. He could compare her to Leliana if he'd seen more of her, but because of his role in the Inquisition, he rarely does.

Unless he rarely sees her because of that roguish stealth.

It frustrates Blackwall if he thinks about it for too long, so, instead, he watches the Inquisitor. The firelight isn't quite bright enough to illuminate her or the tree she's leaning on, but he can still see the sharp lines of her face. He ends up approaching her, feeling his mouth tug down in a slight frown despite himself.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

The Inquisitor regards him curiously.

"Yes, thank you," she says. "Is there something—?"

"You always look a little," Blackwall searches for the right word, "off, after talking to him."

"Off?"

"Troubled, I guess," Blackwall says.

"I'll have to guard my expressions more carefully," the Inquisitor says.

"I don't think most people would notice," Blackwall says.

The Inquisitor turns her head to watch Dorian and Bull chat, and then she looks back at Blackwall and steps closer to him. Now the firelight reaches her face, making the pale grey of her eyes gleam in the dark.

"He's a Tevinter magister," the Inquisitor says, "or the son of one."

"He makes you uncomfortable," Blackwall says. The realization feels like something he should've already known. "Is that why you never take him to any elven ruins?"

"What do you mean?"

"Whenever you know you're headed to talk to the Dalish, or explore elven ruins, or whatever, you take Solas," Blackwall points out. "If you need a second mage, you take Vivienne. Never Dorian."

The Inquisitor doesn't say anything. Her expression seems to say, Go on.

"You don't take Sera, either," Blackwall says.

The Inquisitor looks a little sad, at that.

"Sera deserves to unlearn all the hatred she was forced to internalize about our people," she says, "but while I'm in a position where I'm the representative of the Inquisition, I can't afford to offend the clans I'm trying to speak with."

"I've noticed Solas talks down on them, too, though," Blackwall says. "On you, I mean. Sometimes."

Something akin to bitterness flashes across the Inquisitor's face, but it's gone so quickly that Blackwall isn't sure it was ever there.

"Yes," the Inquisitor says, "but I don't have much of a choice. Solas knows more about the old ways than I do. More than even my Keeper did, I suspect. So he's useful. And he usually knows to keep his mouth shut when I'm speaking to Dalish clan members."

There's a silent pause. The Inquisitor's expression is unreadable.

"You notice a lot of things," she says.

Blackwall's first instinct is to take it as a compliment, but something about her scrutiny makes him uncomfortable. He forces that down.

"Well, I was the captain of many men," Blackwall says.

"As Thom Rainer," the Inquisitor says, voice neutral. "I remember."

Blackwall breaks eye contact.

"I'm just always aware of troop delegation and dynamics and all that," he says to the ground. "If you asked the Lady Cassandra, I'm sure she'd say the same things."

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that she's still regarding him, and because she doesn't look displeased, he steels himself to look back up at her. She's not quite blank, but it's that unreadable expression, still. Blackwall finds himself thinking that she's well-suited for the diplomacy he knows she has to engage in. And then she starts speaking.

"Dorian doesn't make me uncomfortable," she says. "He makes me angry."

Blackwall can only stand there and stare at her. The anger in her tone—such clear _rage_ without raising her voice even a little—

"He makes me _seethe_ ," she says. "He's owned and seen more enslaved elves than I could ever count. He tried to justify it to me once, you know, when I asked him about it. 'Better enslaved than free and poor.' As if those are the only two choices we can have. As if the former will ever be better than the latter."

"Maker's breath," Blackwall says. "I've—I've never seen you say much as an unkind word to him."

"What I said then was cold enough," the Inquisitor says, "but, no. You haven't."

"Why?"

"I had a wife, before all this, back home," the Inquisitor says, slowly, like it pains her. "She had two little brothers. I loved them like they were my own brothers. And then my clan was wiped out. Shortly after the Inquisition found its unsteady feet. I wasn't there. There were no survivors. My Keeper, my family, my wife, her little brothers. Gone. How old, Blackwall, were the nobleman's children your soldiers slaughtered under your orders?"

Blackwall closes his eyes for a moment.

"I don't know."

"I don't believe you," she says.

A heavy silence sits between them. The Inquisitor's steel-grey gaze turns to the fire, where Bull and Dorian still sit.

"You and Dorian have both saved my life on at least one occasion," the Inquisitor says. "You and he have risked your own lives for this cause. I trust him. I trust you. Trusting and liking are not the same."

Blackwall feels the dismissal, or perhaps just needs it to be one.

"Inquisitor," he says.

Her eyes snap back to him.

"I'm not finished."

Blackwall waits.

"You do good work here," she says. "You're here now, fighting at my side, because I want you to be. Same with Dorian."

Before Blackwall can tell himself, Don't push it, he finds himself saying, "Dorian hasn't been sentenced to join the Grey Wardens after this is over."

The Inquisitor doesn't quite raise an eyebrow at him, but Blackwall feels like it's a close thing.

"I thought you regarded that as an honor?"

"No, I do," Blackwall says hurriedly. "It's more than I deserve, to try to do good works through the Grey Wardens. I'll always be grateful for that. But—"

He's dug himself into a hole here, he realizes. Sod it. Might as well keep digging.

"What of Dorian, after all this?" he says.

"He will answer for his actions," the Inquisitor says, "and for what has happened because of his inaction, as well."

A shiver runs up Blackwall's spine.

"You're going to kill him," Blackwall says.

Now the Inquisitor does raise an eyebrow.

"I was thinking more along the lines of using him as a political tool for abolition," she says, "but I'll admit that's crossed my mind, too."

Dorian and Bull have quieted down by now, conversing in low murmurs, and when Blackwall looks over to them, he sees that Dorian is leaning just a little on Bull's shoulder.

The Inquisitor, when Blackwall looks back at her, has no true expression on her face, nothing to give any indication that she'd spoken of Dorian just moments ago with such malice that it frightened even Blackwall.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asks.

"Have I really said much that no one could figure out themselves if they thought for a few minutes about it?" she says. "And—well. We're the same, you and I, if only in just the one way."

"What?"

The Inquisitor gazes beyond Blackwall, into the trees. Gazes at nothing at all.

"We're both responsible for the deaths of children," she says.

"That's—" Blackwall says, "that's not—"

Blackwall is reduced to staring yet again. He can't find the words. A woman like this, pouring so much guilt and blame onto herself, this woman who's responsible for saving the continent, whose situation doesn't sound at all the same.

"I gave the orders," Blackwall says. "I knew, and I gave the orders. You said, what, that you weren't there to protect your boys? That's not your fault. Don't blame yourself for that."

"Isn't it?" the Inquisitor says. "When I received the letter, when I ignored that feeling, delegated it, when I trusted J—"

The Inquisitor closes her eyes. Visibly recovers herself. Opens her eyes again, face smooth once more.

"I should've gone myself," she says. "I knew. I _knew_. I practically killed them myself."

"Stop," Blackwall says. "Maker, just—stop. _No_."

The Inquisitor blinks, eyes widening, and then she smiles gently at Blackwall.

"Keep working on yourself," she says. "You're making good strides so far. Maybe one day you'll feel worthy of the hand that the former Blackwall reached out to you."

"Inquisitor—"

"Goodnight, Blackwall," the Inquisitor says. "Get some rest. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

Blackwall watches wordlessly, some helpless feeling churning in his gut, as the Inquisitor walks to the tent she and Dorian share and enters it, closing the tent flap silently behind her.

Blackwall waits until Bull heads to the tent they're sharing to retire himself. Bull's snores don't bother him, they never have, but, still, Blackwall doesn't sleep at all that night.

**Author's Note:**

> hi the fact that the table quest protect clan lavellan has a fail option still makes me want to tear my hair out that's all goodbye


End file.
